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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 1959)
toy tf Sesoirs Dim it 9 1 a s , i - i v . 3 - .. '3 i i 1! 3 I ' 1 ,1 MAIL TRIIUNC, Madfors, Or. B Wednesday, Auf. 19, 1959 Popular Service Of Sears Is New Charge Accounts One of the most popular new services to be offered . by the Sears Medf ord store will be 30-day charge ac count. A unique feature of these charge accounts is that they can, at the option of the cus tomer, be spread over a period of 10 months for a small serv ice charge. The customer may decide each month which way he prefers to pay. The monthly statement will show the bal ance to be paid in full as well as the amount to be paid if the customer decides to use the extended plan. The cus tomer has the option to use the plan either way at any time without additional credit approval... Nation-Wide Service Sears Revolving Charge Is nation-wide and Medford cus tomers will be able to charge merchandise purchased at any of the company's retail stores or catalog sales units, or or dered directly from the cata log from anywhere in the United States. The Sears Consumer Credit program is one of the most flwrible in use in the retail field today. In addition to Viarup accounts. Sears makes extensive use of conditional sales contract financing for furniture, appliances and simi lar merchandise: dIus a mod ernization credit program for building materials allowing as much as three years for re payment, Nationally. Sears Revolving . Charge sales last year account ed for 8.8 per cent of the com pany's $3.7 billion in sales. Installment sales of all kinds accounted for 47.3 per cent of the company's business dur ing the year. All-Year Comfort Assured in Store Year-'round comfort is as sured customers and em ployees of the big Sears, Roe buck and Co. store in Med ford. ' A new-type, modulated temperature system provides air-conditioning throughout the building, cooling or heat ing the air according to sea sonal requirement. Thermostats can call for either heating, cooling or just ventilating air, which is sent by duct network to that part of the building requir .ing the conditioned air. The entire system cools or heats, ventilates, circulates . and filters the air before it reaches the space to be air conditioned. The cooling - is provided by equipment of 225 tons capacity, located in the large equipment room. To provide maximum com fort, for customers and em ployees, the air is changed completely throughout the building every nine minutes by means of a blower system. The complete air-condition ing unit was installed by Mc Laughlin Plumbing and Heat ing Company, Sears, Roebuck Department Personnel '.: I; i ,,;; 'S-';., JOE SANFORD ' Assistant Manager 1 1' AA Q M & B II U L Railway Station Agent Disposes of Watches Initially The story of Sears, Roebuck and Co., whose new retail store in Medford opens to morrow is one of the most interesting in the annals of American- business. Last year it took more than 200,000 employees to run tne ' company, in ib&o the business that became Sears, Roebuck and Co. was DOUG WALTON Receiving. Shipping MART DeWEERD Houseware JOHN DENBO Floor Covering VERN MeCALL Farm Garden, Toys DON SUNDENE Sporting Goods, Paints HAZEL OSWALD Domestic. Yardage NORMA ROBINSON Infants, Children JOHN FREESE Store Controller WAYNE ALLEN , Merchandising Manager JIM WELLS . Radio; Television LOREN COOPER . Furniture i I I W I BILLIE SMITH Ladies Fashion TED McDANIELS Hardware. Electrical EARL FOX Mechanical Service DICK WAGNER Credit Sales RALPH KINGMAN Drapery HAROLD SMITH Men's Furnishings ' ; 'I ' Sears Laboratory Tests Merchandise To Insure Quality Take the guesswork out of buying! Guard the quality of Sears merchandise! These are the twin missions of the merchandise i testing and development laboratory in the Chicago headquarters of Sears, . Roebuck and Cd., according to R. E. .Jacobson, manager of the Sears store in Medford. Sears' laboratory, among the first to be established by merchandising concern, serves as 'a supreme court, a watch dog, a censor and an inventor. Each year its staff of more than 150 chemists, engineers and technicians checks more than 20,000 sep arate items. . Sears' laboratory is divided into seven major testing divi sions: chemical, electro - me chanical, heat and refrigera tion, home economics, materi als, radio-physics and textiles, . The laboratory employs the latest apparatus s for testing merchandise of all types. In some of the laboratory units technicians in spotless white smocks work amid a maze of microscopes-arid test tubes. In others, engineers clad brown aprons man ingenious machines used for a variety of tests. : To reach satisfactory con clusions, many items must be subjected to tests that are more extreme and severe than the merchandise, is : likely to endure during normal use. Sears industrial : designers are confronted with the great est array, of products avail able. - Literally hundreds of new. designs flow forth annu ally from the designer's draw ing board-everything from a three-wheeled tractor to a simple three-burner hot plate, But like most creative de partments, designers are part of a team. Sears designers la bor closely with the manufac turer and buyer to produce a product which is appealing, attractive and available at the right price.- MEL NORTH Plumbing,' Heating PETE JENSEN Automotive, Station ARNOLD TRIGSTAD Display, Advertising BILL BELL Shoe Department RUSS HANSON Men's Suits Sound System to Provide Music Music via a revolutionary type of sound system will greet visitors to the new Sears, Roebuck and Co. store, 501 East Jackson st., when the doors are opened to the public tomorrow morning. Good fidelity and tonal qualities are obtained from a large library of transcrip tions. A scientifically planned program plays suitable music for different times of day. a "one-man" mau order house operated by the station agent in North . Redwood,. Minn. A jeweler in North Red wood, afraid of becoming overstocked, decided ' not to accept a shipment of watches sent ' to him. The shipment was returned to the railway office. The station agent, Richard W. Sears, obtained permission to dispose of the watches. He thought that it would be to his credit if he was able to get the railroad its express charges. Sends Letters Young Sears sent hand written letters to railroad men he knew and told them about the watches. The ship ment vanished and left the Sears with extra money in his pocket and with a - mer chandising idea whose possi bilities excited him. In a few months, Sears spare-time job had outgrown in importance his duties with the railroad. When he was 20, he moved to Minneapolis and founded his . first mail order house. The Minneapolis enter prise was a success, and he moved the business to Chica go and it continued to flour ish until 1889 when, he sold it. At length he decided to re turn to the mail order busi ness and started his second house at Minneapolis. He took as partner, A. C. Roebuck whom he had employed as watchmaker in his first ven ture. This business followed the example of its predeces sor and moved to Chicago where in 1893 the present name, "Sears, Roebuck and Co.," was adopted. ': Reduee Expense . The merchandising philos ophy under which the firm then began to attain, its growth was to reduce to the absolute practical minimum the expense of moving goods from producer, to consumer. There followed establishment of the famous guarantee: "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." Customers received further protection when the company, in 1911, became the first dis tributor to establish testing laboratories. On Feb. 1, 1925, Sears opened its first retail store and three years later the man who bears the chief respon sibility for inducing the man agement to establish a retail system-General R. E. Wood was named president of the company. General Wood, who retired as chairman of the board in 1954, is still a direc tor and active in the affairs of the company. West Coast Operations While Sears nationally is in its 73rd year, it was not until 1910 that its first oper ations were conducted on the Pacific Coast. Sears' history in the Northwest goes back to when the first selling of furniture and farm imple ments by the company was undertaken from a warehouse in Seattle. In 1912 construction was started on the Seattle mail order plant and this was opened for business .Jan. 1, 1913. The first Sears retail store in the West was opened in Seattle in May, 1925. I BEATRICE PERREAULT J V - !- Ui. Seors-Ioebyck (Foundation Projects Dri Area Are Ievieved by AAanager . 1 eTrtriC SHELVES The enormous job of difficult to comprehend. Part of sporting STOW merchandise. Dricing it and put- goods section is shown in foreground above. vinTialt . S-L Sk - UUf- . ting iton display in the huge Sears store is Even in the heated rush of preparing , to meet the . dead line for opening of Medford's new Sears store, Manager R. E. Jacobson found time to talk about a lot of things not di rectly related to his immedi ate big store opening job. "With bur company," Jacob- son said,, "it. is a. fundamental attitude of mind that in our relations with employees, cus tomers and the public, we not only must observe , the Gold en Rule but must recognize the company's social and civic responsibilities to the indi viduals and communities whose support and respect contributes to the company's success." Jacobson recalled the many years of participation by in dividuals and groups in south ern Ore eon communities in various project activities spon sored by The Sears-Roebuck Foundation, a non-profit cor poration endowed by the com pany to aid in the economic and social betterment of the American community. Foundation's Activity A recent survey showed that a major portion Of the Foundation's activity is car ried On in Oregon in coopera- of the state department of public instruction, 4-H "clubs, and other educational, agri cultural, and civic agencies. Typical of the Sears Foun dation program undertaken in cooperation f with ;7fr - high school departments m voca tional agriculture .in Oregon, are the beet dairy, and sheep projects now being conducted at Central Point, Eagle Point, Phoenix, Grants Pass, and Illinois Valley. With Sears Foundation funds each of the schools pur chase a registered beef or dairy heifer, or a "flock of sheep. The heifers and sheep go to Future Farmer boys who agree, to care for the animals under the supervision of their ' instructors m voca tional agriculture. Returns Offspring Each boy agrees to return the animal's first offspring to his Future Farmer of America chapter so it may be awarded to still another boy. thus lengthening the chain of proj ect participants and perpetu ating the program. The sneep flocks, from year to year, are given to different boys to manage, each boy retaining most of the lamb crop. , Another Sears - Foundation sponsored program in Oregon which Jacobson called atten tion to is the agricultural scholarship program "at Ore gon state college, since ine program was started in 1940, the .Foundation has invested $33,114 to provide scholar ships for 233 Oregon boys. Typical of the 14 boys hold ing these scholarships during the current school year were National FFA President Adin Hester and Robert E. Miller of Ashland. , . ' Last fall, 15 Oregon churches received cash awards from the Foundation in the statewide Town and Country Church improvement program sponsored in cooperation with the Oregon Council of Churches. Included in these winners were the Shan Creek Community church and the Wilderville Methodist church at Cave Junction. Local Project Program Almost $300,000 has been expended on the local project program of the Foundation in Oregon since its inception in 1940. This does not include Oregon participation in such national programs sponsored by the Foundation as the Na tional Grange Community Service program, Sears Merit spholarshin program and the General Federation of Worn- pn s clubs "Build a Better Community" contest in which first prize of $10,000 was won by St. "Helens m 1958. , ti t tl t :J . .ir-- 1 - I SHOE DEPARTMENT -The picture above shows only a small section of the large shoe department in the new Sears store that will open tomorrow. Shoes will be displayed on tables and racks in background. The section is fully carpeted.
